What we did after reaching Delhi....

Jaipur was like a bad dream fraught with outputs of oral ingestions . Sharma the driver drank steadily from 10 till midnight , the night before we started . In the early morning , he almost drove into a bullock cart at one of the gates leading in/out of , Jaipur . Thereafter, he drove like one possessed till Ashis told him to slow down whereupon he obligingly slowed down to 40kmph...till further urging by Ashis made him pick up speed . Thereafter he drove on the back of the west wind or nrth westerly or whatever it was that took us forward into Agra .
Agra town was full of filthy gutters,filthier guttersnipes,pollution control vehicles and the Taj - I much preferred the 2 monuments on either side of the Taj , one a seraikhana and the other , its twin possibly a mosque ,which are inexplicably played down but which , in their own rights are beautiful buildings .

On the drive back to Delhi somewhere outside of Mathura , after a good meal , the good Sharmaji ,while driving down the highway ,folded up his left leg and closed his left eye ......

We travelled on to Delhi and to much eating of pijjas and drinking of Papsis ,and Buchku mashi's incomparable hospitality , the good visit was wound up ..

TRAVELS WITH RAG ,TAG &THE SIGNIFICANT OTHER ...NO APOLOGIES TO ANYONE

The first long ish trip we took as a family was when Rag was 11 and Tag was 5 1/2 . Tag has always been a very precocious child with her precocity very well hidden . Rag too has enveloped her precocity under self absorption . Anyway , without digressing too much , the trip was to the Golden triangle - Delhi-Agra Jaipur , in March . Delhi was fine - although I laid a lot of stress on the Red Fort, Jama Masjid and the historical splendour trapped inside a modern city , Rag and Tag and to some extent their father were more impressed with the finer points of the culinary traditions of the great capital ...which paid rich dividends on the drive to Jaipur .....




The Garden at Amer Fort - which all of us luckily checked out one day after Tupu puked all over an elephant's back watched curiously by hordes of tourists ,one sympathetic guide and one embarrassed father . Luckily I was at home because Tani , then very small had decided she wanted to play "ranna bari"with one ashtray (blue pottery ) packet of fags and a matchbox ...



The road was steep ,cobbled and hopelessly medieval ( no one appreciated it ,from the historical point of view ) and a ride on a fat swaying elephant on such a road can be quite fatal to any oral ingestion........





Jaigarh fort was rugged and unreachable so only Rag and I
went there . Rag was interested in the following
(in order of interest )
Bags of chips
The ring to which the elephant that crushed the enemies of the state used to be tethered
What we would have for lunch

Tag kept her father busy playing bari bari with sundry articles like coasters , cigarette packets and bottles of pepsi

On the way back Rag had two cups of Mother Dairy ice cream.....


Fortunately we saw the Jal Mahal from afar - all 4 of us -- I shudder to think what I would have had to put up with had we gone there ......

Tag unfortunatly christened the age old temple of Meerabai somewhere outside the picturesque and very beautiful Amer fort by peeing in a dim corner.....

Rag and I had a lovely time shopping like we usually do ....
More about our other travels later.....